In essence, Palace is the creation of Michael Palace; a guy who handled almost everything on this debut release and if it wasn’t for Daniel Flores (a standard figure in many releases by Frontiers) then “Master of the Universe” could have easily been an exclusive, solo album. If you think that we exaggerate, let us simply say that Michael Palace sings, plays guitar, bass and keyboards on the album…an one-man band, that is!
“Master Of The Universe” is the debut release by Palace and it is really a retro sounding album as it sets out an atmosphere of an album that was released in between 1983 and 1985. From my point of view, Michael Palace attempted to achieve the same result as Balance did in the dawn of the 80s…create an AOR album with a touch of a soundtrack aesthetic in there with an absolute balance of keyboards and guitars. He added a heavy dose of White Widdow and Brother Firetribe elements rounded by a crystal clear production with the vocals being in front in the final mix.
This is how we would paint a good picture of what this album by Palace is all about. I am pretty certain that it would be embraced by all the fans of the genre but unfortunately I believe that it will eventually fade away due to the sheer storm of releases (especially by Frontiers). I sincerely hope that I will be proved wrong and things will turn out otherwise…
Highlight: Michael Palace was once a member of the Swedish outfit of Big Time.
